Facebook "fan" pages are public profiles that can help you engage with customers and amplify your business brand. Here are some ideas on how to do it right.

Make it about the community. Don’t just create a fan page for your business. Make one for your town or neighborhood as well, and link the two together. A community page creates an affinity among local consumers that a business typically can’t. Linda Davis, a practitioner with RE/Max Realty Group in eastern Connecticut, put together two fan pages simultaneously—one for her business and one for the town of Ledyard, Conn.—and got nearly 10 times as many fans for the latter.

Don’t control comments. Allow people to express their opinions freely. If you try to control the conversation, they won’t come back. "Any great fan page has one common element, and that is true freedom for the fans to comment and interact," says James K. Barath, a mortgage planner in northwestern Indiana.

Seek out your target audience. Don’t just indiscriminately blast out invitations for people to "become a fan" of your page. You might end up with a lot of fans, but many of them will be strangers, people trying to sell you something, and the like.